World News - Rice begins Mid-East peace push. Sounds more like “War is Peace and Ignorance is Strength”

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is in Israel as she begins a renewed effort to revive stalled negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians. She is due to meet both sides but has admitted that she will not be presenting any concrete new proposals. Ms Rice will also visit Arab capitals to rally support for President Bush's new strategy in Iraq, which includes sending 21,500 extra US troops. She warned that the US will oppose any Iranian or Syrian interference in Iraq. Ms Rice is set to hold talks with Israeli ministers later on Saturday and will see Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday, before wrapping up this stage of her tour with talks with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Monday.... http://news.bbc.co.uk

Poland's Roman Catholic Church is to investigate whether any of its senior members collaborated with the communist-era secret police. The decision was made at an emergency meeting of the country's 45 bishops triggered by the dramatic resignation of Warsaw's archbishop on Sunday. Bishop Stanislaw Wielgus quit after he confessed to collaborating with the communist police. A commission is to probe the past of all bishops and "people of the Church". "The bishops have confirmed the will to carry out a full verification of the truth about ourselves" and all clergy, said Archbishop Jozef Michalik, the head of the bishop's council. Correspondents say the revelations of collaboration have severely weakened the Church, to which 90% of Poland's 40 million people belong. Bishop Wielgus announced his decision to resign at a service intended to install him as the city's new archbishop. The canon of Krakow cathedral, Father Janusz Bielanski, stood down the next day for the same reason...http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6256231.stm

Tsunami evacuation orders have been lifted for thousands of people in Japan, following a powerful undersea earthquake in the Pacific Ocean. The national meteorological agency had warned that a tsunami up to 1m (3ft) in height could hit coastal areas. Small waves reached the north-eastern coast of Hokkaido Island at 1452 (0552 GMT), about 90 minutes after the quake which had a magnitude of 8.2. There were no reported injuries or damage, officials said. Meteorologists had warned of a tsunami up to 1m (3ft) in height from 1400 local time. However, as the appointed time passed, most areas said there had been no visible changes to the sea level. The quake struck at 1324 (0424 GMT) near the Kuril Trench which lies between northern Japan and Russia, the meteorological agency said....http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6258167.stm

Two women in Indonesia have died after contracting bird flu, health officials have confirmed, raising the country's total number of human deaths to 61. A 27-year-old woman from the capital, Jakarta, died in hospital on Friday evening, officials said. Another woman, aged 22, died west of Jakarta in the early hours of Saturday. Indonesia has the world's highest human death toll from the H5N1 virus, and registered more bird flu deaths in 2006 than any other nation. The AFP news agency reported that another patient was in hospital showing symptoms of bird flu infection. That patient has been placed in an isolation ward after killing a sick chicken and apparently contracting the disease, the report said. ...http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6258141.stm

Nepal's Maoist party has named the people who will serve as its MPs in a interim parliament to be established on Monday, after a 10-year civil conflict. The rebel group says it will now follow a political rather than a violent path. Its list of 73 MPs includes many people from traditionally marginalised groups, but not the party's top three leaders. In the past, these groups have been excluded from power and influence in what is an exceptionally hierarchical society, dominated by high-caste men. The Maoists are now on the brink of sharing power - and it is weapons, not votes, that have brought them to this point. Their selection of 73 MPs - their allotted share - is therefore intriguing. Twenty-eight - or more than a third - are women, who are extremely under-represented in Nepalese institutions. Eleven of the Maoist MPs will be Dalits, formerly known as Untouchables; 22 are from indigenous ethnic groups called janajatis; and 21 from communities of the plains bordering India....http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6256583.stm

The Roman Catholic prelate who resigned two days after becoming Warsaw's archbishop denied Saturday that he had concealed his cooperation with the communist-era secret police from Pope Benedict XVI. Nearly a week after Bishop Stanislaw Wielgus stunned Poles by resigning his new post minutes before his formal installation, he issued a statement to "fully support" the oath he made to the papal nuncio in Warsaw in December. In the oath, which was forwarded to the Vatican, Wielgus said "I swear to God" that during "meetings and talks that I held" with security and intelligence forces in the 1970s, "I never spoke against the church, nor did I do or say anything bad against any clergy or lay people." Wielgus' statement Saturday was a response to the papal nuncio, Archbishop Jozef Kowalczyk, who accused the bishop of withholding the truth about his collaboration from the Vatican. ...http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=2792829